


That is Not a Fruit Bowl

by Lucy_Claire



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Art Class AU, Finn is a Mess, M/M, Poe is cranky, Rey is a Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 01:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7957630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucy_Claire/pseuds/Lucy_Claire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What made Poe Dameron <i>take</i> the art class to begin with was the idea of fixing his hand-eye coordination. What makes him <i>stay</i> is the class's endearingly awkward mess of a model, Finn, who has to be the best thing he's seen in years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That is Not a Fruit Bowl

**Author's Note:**

> tropic-of-calculus said:  
> Fic prompt: _Finn is the model but wears a mask until the last five minute and Poe is so stuck on his face that he can't draw at all. Then they talk and get together and are cute! Do what you want with it though, and please please have fun writing this one?_

As a pilot, Poe had perfect hand-eye coordination, or he thought he did until the rest of his squadron decided to take a field trip to a tennis stadium. Once he had the racket in his hand and bright green balls of death hurtling at his face, Poe’s pilot’s precision (ha) went out the window.

He couldn’t hit a single one. Not one. Jess kept aiming them at his nose, that aggressive little brat. Her tagalong friend, Rey, wasn’t any better. If anything she was a hundred times more aggressive when she got into the game. That’s how Poe ended up with a bleeding nose and a fussy British girl practically sitting on top of him, pressing the ice pack to his face and apologizing endlessly.

“It’s okay,” Poe assured her. “I’ve had worse nosebleeds than this, I went to military school.”

Rey’s fussing lessened a little and she dropped down next to him on the timeout bench at the very back of the tennis court they were in, Jess and Snap were now making a show out of hitting the tennis ball back and forth, each hit coming with an exaggerated grunt of exertion that just got louder and more obscene. Poe looked at his right hand and wiggled his fingers experimentally. He was a fighter pilot, his response time to things coming out of the left field is, or at least, should be perfect.

“What’s the matter?” Rey asked, leaning to the side to come into his line of vision, her ridiculous three-bun hairstyle dropping to one side, several stray hairs popping out and he was sure that the middle bun was trying to escape its hairband.

“I’m having a minor existential crisis.”

“About?”

“My eyesight or sense of perspective mostly,” Poe said, setting the icepack back on his nose. “Haven’t given it a thought ever, haven’t given much about myself a thought lately.”

“How so?”

“You know how sometimes you suddenly stop and notice that you’re actually halfway through the year and you haven’t changed a bit? Or that your graduation date just keeps getting farther and farther away without you noticing? Or that the last time you went on a date wasn’t last September but three autumns ago?”

“I guess?” she said awkwardly. “Damn, the last time you went on a date was three years ago?”

Poe groaned, slouching against the wall, massaging his right wrist with his left hand. “God, what am I saying? Compared to me you just hatched.”

“Hey, I’m nineteen!” Rey defended.

“Exactly my point. Baby hatchling. And I bet that you’ve picked up a lot more hobbies in that time than I have in my post-graduate life and know far more about yourself than I do.”

“Where is this going exactly?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Existential crisis, remember?”

“Okay, let’s go back a bit. You said you worry about your sense of perspective?”

“Yeah, I need to have a great sense of distant and proportion and aim in my job, and if I start making mistakes as silly as the ones I made with a damn racket on ground what am I going to do when I’m airborne?”

“You could take an art class,” Rey suggested. 

“An art class?”

“Yes!” Rey raised both her hands and started moving her hands about like she was stretching a rubber band in different angles, testing out how far they could go. “My friend Finn and I started taking one a few summers back and it actually helped put a lot of thing into perspective, once you learn to draw you see things so differently.”

“What did an athlete like you need an art class for?”

A small blush of embarrassment tinged her chipmunk cheeks. “Finn and I had this idea that we could make our own manga.”

“Manga?”

“Comic book, essentially.”

“I see.” Poe said, suddenly feeling a hundred times older. “Where is this art class you take?”

“It’s in the Skywalker Institute, it’s open to the public on weekends. I can go with you on Saturday morning!” Rey offered, eyes shining with excitement. 

“I don’t know…”

“Oh, come on! It’ll be fun! Besides, it could just fix all your old man problems.”

“I’m thirty-two.”

“Exactly, you’re ancient in dog years.”

Poe rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll go try out drawing a fruit bowl, see where that gets me.”

 

* * *

 

Poe arrived at the Skywalker Institute on a Saturday morning, the sketchpad and pencil case he picked up from Walmart on his way over tucked under his arm and the sickeningly sweet purple frappe he picked up on a whim from Coffee Bean was numbing his fingers. It was sort of it, standing in the school he had wanted to go to so badly back as a child just for the chance that he might run into his hero, Luke Skywalker, but his parents, both military, figured a school in that fashion was the best for him. Not that he didn’t like it there or the job he took, he just felt that it left so little room for any kind of thinking, so that he had to have a belated and fast quarter-life crisis to make him pick up an artistic hobby.

 Several people went in the building with him and led him to the art class. Most were girls, and all were at least ten years younger than him. He felt a bit creepy just being here among all these college girls even if they weren’t remotely his type.

Poe huffed as he entered the class and spotted Rey and Jess. Whatever they had going on had been less than two months, meanwhile Poe hadn’t been on a date in three years. Three years since he was on a date, nearly four since he was in a relationship and nearly a year since he had last gotten laid. He could if he wanted to, there were bars and clubs near their base by the block, but he just felt too old for one-night stands and dates with club kids. He wanted to wake up and find himself six months into a relationship with his boyfriend, wearing each other’s clothes, doting on his corgi BB8 and falling asleep on the couch watching _Star Trek_. Was that too much to ask?

With another loud huff, Poe put on his most charming smile and sat on the stool next to Rey. “Good morning, ladies.”

Jess gave him a curt nod and Rey waved eagerly. “Hey, you came just in time, they were about to shut the door.”

Poe opened his sketchbook and set it on the desk. “This place is pretty packed, I didn’t think that many people would show up to scribble a bunch of shapes.”

“Shapes? This is a life-art class,” said Rey, distractedly following something with her eyes from over Poe’s shoulder. She then jumped in her seat and waved with her entire arm, her smile big and fond. “And here’s today’s subject.”

“I still don’t get why that many people would want to learn how to draw a —” his words died off in his throat as he noticed something new in the middle of the room. “That’s not a fruit bowl…”

 Right across from him, sitting on an upright rectangle of a seat was a man in a Mardi Gras mask and purple suit. Despite sitting on a backless chair and trying to keep his back straight with his hands set on his knees, there was a slight self-conscious hunch to his shoulders and his eyes darted side to side in almost paranoid speed.

His eyes finally moved back to the center and they landed on Poe. He was expecting him to look away instantly, or at least say something to Rey, but he just jerked back slightly, fully straightening his posture and widening his eyes in surprise. Poe raised the hand holding the pencil and wiggled his free fingers in a silent hello.

What Poe was expecting to get was an uncomfortable frown or at least a question about why someone his age was on this campus, but what he got was the dorkiest smile he had ever seen and a quick wave before he set his hand back on his knee.

He had very white and even teeth, an oval-shaped face, a compact body, probably not that much taller than him, but all in all great grounds for disaffected confidence, it would have been very easy for him to put on one of Poe’s practiced charming smiles but just the way spread his lips into that awkward grin really got Poe’s attention.

“Who’s that?” he asked Rey.

“That’s my friend Finn.”

“The one you wanted to draw anime with?”

“Manga, anime are the cartoons,” Rey corrected quickly. “Yes, him. He kind of lost a bet a few months back and I forgot about it, so when he finally asked me to tell him what was in for him I just told him to be today’s subject.”

“So, he’s here on a dare.”

“Mmm, more or less.” Rey started sketching his outline, pleased with herself. “I could done worse you know. I could brought him in on nude model days.”

“The guy looks anxious enough, do you want him to die of embarrassment?”

“Finn nearly dies of embarrassment when he trips over his cat.”

He has a cat. Good, that means he isn’t allergic to furry animals and could be around BB8 without crying like his last boyfriend — where did that line of thought come from?

The adorably awkward being in the Mardi Gras mask now known as Finn was now nervously drumming his fingers on his knees and looking off to the side. The instant Poe focused on his face so he could start drawing his mask Finn’s eyes met his again and he hunched a little, not in an attempt to make himself seem smaller but in an effort to duck his head as another smile broke across his lips, smaller than the last one, but with a different kind of shyness.

“I wonder what’s so funny,” said Rey suspiciously. “He’s not supposed to be laughing, he’s supposed to be turning into a puddle of goo.”

Poe was the one who would be turning into a puddle of goo if he ever got to hear the shaky laugh behind that shy face. He looked like he would be the type to laugh easily, the type to appreciate having a hundred cat videos sent his way for a quick pick-me-up. He wondered what breed his cat was and if it could be walked on a leash with BB8 —

There he was going again. Romanticizing the first guy he found endearing. It didn’t help that most guys he met were either neurotic messes who fished for compliments to satisfy their egos or cocky over-confident jackasses, a seemingly sweet nerd who wanted to draw comic books with Rey and had a cat and the sense to buy a suit that was anything other than black or grey was pretty high up there.

Unless he was straight, though he had dated guys who said they were straight at one point or another. Rey would know.

Wait, Rey was his friend, they have known each other for at least five years. How old was he?

“Um, he’s not the same age as you, is he?” Poe asked awkwardly, he had tried the dating an Under-21 back when he was twenty-four and boy did that give him an endless headache.

“Finn? Oh, no, he’s twenty-three.”

Poe felt half-relief and half-confused. Rey picked up on it and offered him a quick answer, “We’re neighbors, my aunt was and still kind of is his foster mom.”

“And is he…?” Poe fished, training off as he finished outlining a misshapen feather that stuck out of the mask.

“Is he…?” Rey repeated, one eyebrow raised. 

“…A student here?” Poe finished weakly. 

“No, he went into an apprenticeship with my Uncle Han straight out of high school,” said Rey. “He’s a handyman, and he knows his way around plumbing, which is a godsend because even though I know my way around any engine but I don’t understand my kitchen sink.”

 _“So he’s good with his hands,”_ was the first thought to pop into Poe’s head. His instant reaction was a shaming face-palm that made a loud smacking noise as it hit a lot harder than he meant it to. “Ow!”

A small splutter of a laugh quickly turning into a series of internal snorts as Finn bit his lip to keep his mouth shut. 

“Laugh at my pain, why don’t you,” Poe said dramatically. 

Finn said nothing, but he snuck another upward glance at Poe before the art teacher told him to stop hunching.

“He’s so cute,” Poe whispered, not knowing where to start drawing his chin as he made his face a bit too long. 

“What was that?” asked Jess.

“Never you mind,” said Poe, starting on the details of the mask, trying to at least draw the fake jewels glued on it in their proper places. “Just the ramblings of a lonely old man, it seems.”

“Old?”

“Ancient, in dog years.”

Rey giggled at that.

Halfway into the lesson, Poe looked up again to start drawing Finn’s hands and noticed him watching him with a giddy curiosity, that was when he finally caught on to Rey gesturing at him, sending him several signals that were so intricate and meaningful it could have possibly been British Sign Language. Judging by the way Rey suddenly froze and Finn jerked lightly in his seat, they had been having a conversation about him this entire time.

Poe cleared his throat. “Am I missing something here?”

Jess, ever the heinous interloper, cut off Rey’s insistent “No!” and Finn’s head-shaking to deadpan “He likes your hair, Rey was telling him all about how curly it gets when you sweat.”

In an instant, Finn now looked like he wanted to literally die of embarrassment. Poe took this a great sign, a sign of interest, a sign of nice interest. He was thinking about his hair and not anything else most of the young queer boys he met prioritized. Poe started drawing the hands and thought about those fingers combing through his hair after a long day. 

“Sweat frizzes it but it’s always in a great state after I shower,” Poe offered, testing the waters. “Curls just nicely when it air-dries.”

Finn lightened up slightly but he still didn’t say anything. Another quick gesture from Rey prompted Poe to consider that Finn may actually be deaf. Oh, God, how would they communicate? Poe could barely learn Spanish and he grew up with it, how would he learn Sign Language fast enough to say anything to him?

It was then that Finn finally spoke, deflating Poe’s sudden burst of anxiety, “I bet you look like a Greek statue when it dries.”

Poe raised his eyebrows, smiling a bit at the implication, but Finn caught on to what he said and quickly added, “I mean, the curly hair bit, not the naked god bit, though you could be a stand in for any of the Greek gods, you’re much better looking than all the busts and statues I’ve seen — I mean in an objective sense! Like how you can tell a flower is pretty! I’m not hitting on you or anything,” he babbled in a panic, sweat popping on the exposed parts of his skin as he came to a wheezing stop. “Shutting up now.”

“No, no, keep going,” Poe urged, feeling a grin coming on, the clear and adorably clumsy interest suddenly breathing fresh air into his lungs. “I’m open to it, you know, if you are hitting on me.”

Finn looked to Rey’s direction for encouragement, she gave him a double-thumbs up with adorable encouragement and Finn just waved at Poe again, like he didn’t know what else to do right now. It was too adorable.

Somewhere around Poe attempting to shade the satin-y material of Finn’s purple jacket (and failing) the teacher announced that the class was over and everyone packed up. Finn breathed out a relieved gasp and he stood up to stretch. “Never doing this again.”

“Sitting on a backless chair for an hour?” Poe asked, quickly packing up, taking the chance to speak incase Finn rushed off.

He loosened his tie as he faced Poe, they were the same height, but Poe’s high-rising hair may have added an inch or so to his height. “Sitting in a room where everyone’s staring at me and I can’t talk. Do you know how hard it is not to talk, especially when you’re uncomfortable?”

“Not really, when I get uncomfortable I just kind of —” Poe moved a hand down in front of his face, signaling the transition from expressive to blank-faced. “ —shut down.” 

“So, if we’re in an odd situation I’ll start talking and you’ll stop talking. I can’t tell which is worse.”

“Depends on the situation, if it’s illegal then it’s better for me, if it’s social then it’s better for you,” Poe reasoned, edging closer, offering his hand. “I’m Poe, Poe Dameron.”

Finn stared at him for a second then caught his hand and shook it, he had firm grip and a rough, calloused palm. “That is one of the coolest names I’ve ever heard, and Rey’s last name is _Skywalker_. What kind of a cool name is Skywalker?” 

“Some medieval word for pilot, probably.” Poe let his hand linger for a bit longer, still holding onto his hand. “Enough about Rey, what about you?”

“Me? Oh. Oh! I’m Finn.”

“Finn what?”

Without thinking, Finn replied, “Dameron — _Sparrow!_ Finn Sparrow, that’s me.”

“Like the bird! I hope you like flying with that name.”

“I do! I’ve been skydiving twice.”

“I didn’t expect that.”

“Eh, I only become a quivering mess around people, in other situations I’m fine,” Finn said casually, taking off the mask to wipe the sweat off his brow. “What about you?”

“I’m a pilot.”

“No way!”

“Yes way,” Poe replied somewhat awkwardly, instantly regretting it. “I can take you for a flight sometime.”

“Honestly? That’s be so amazing!” Finn spotted the sketchbook and held out his hand. “Can I see?”

“I’d rather not, I’m terrible at this.”

“I can give you some pointers.”

“Alright.” Poe handed him the sketchbook.

Finn’s reaction was pretty telling, a surprised cringe. “I’d say you need to start drawing with guidelines, like the circle and oval treatment to set up where everything goes.”

“Why don’t you show me all the neat tips and tricks, I need all the help I can get in the department of mapping out things, it seems,” Poe said. “You know, to measure out distances in proportion and stuff.”

“When?”

“You busy now?”

Finn seemed to have suddenly remembered where they were and looked around. Rey and Jess had disappeared and they were the only people left in the room. “Evidently not.”

“I didn’t get to have my morning coffee. Join me for a cup, tell me all about how to not draw like a kindergartener?”

“Absolutely.” Finn’s response was another big dorky grin and Poe was half in love already. He should let Rey serve tennis balls at his head more often if this was the end result.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [**Tumblr**](http://lucyclairedelune.tumblr.com)!
> 
>  
> 
> Don't forget to comment! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧


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